There have been a lot of discussions about healthy eating. To take it one step further, healthy eating is about choosing the right food in the right proportion. Few questions need to be answered while considering healthy eating.
- What type of foods to put on your plate?
- How much should be the portion size?
- How often should you eat?
While it is important to ensure to provide your body with the essential nutrients with every meal, one also has to take care of the food groups and portions of each of these food groups. And it all starts with your plate.
While following a healthy eating plan, what food you take on your plate is an important consideration. So, when it comes to filling your plate, think quality over quantity. Building a meal centred around nutrient-dense, wholesome fruits and vegetables are important.
How to create a healthy eating plate
Fruit, vegetables, whole grains, legumes all provide vitamins, minerals, dietary fibre and nutrients. Fill half your plate with fruits and vegetables and the remaining half with fibre and protein to create a healthy foundation for every meal. Besides, ensure one serving of low-fat or fat-free dairy to round out each meal.
Fruits & Vegetables
Fruits and vegetables are low-calorie foods with tremendous health benefits. They are an important source of nutrients, including potassium, dietary fibre, folate (folic acid), vitamin A, and vitamin C. Choose from a variety of colourful fresh fruits and vegetables. Make sure to include a variety of different colours like greens, reds, and oranges to get a wider variety of nutrients and health benefits.
Whole Grains for Healthy Carbs
Carbohydrates should be your body’s main source of energy in a healthy, balanced diet. Starchy vegetables and whole grains are rich in healthy carbs. Besides, they also provide many other nutrients, including dietary fibre, several B vitamins, and minerals, like iron, potassium, magnesium, and selenium.
Lean Protein
Proteins play a crucial role in metabolism, immunity, fluid balance, and energy. Foods that provide high levels of protein include dairy and plant proteins. These foods provide not only protein but B vitamins (niacin, thiamin, riboflavin, and B6), vitamin E, iron, zinc, magnesium, and calcium.
Healthy Fats
Healthy fats provide essential nutrients and can come in lots of shapes and sizes. It could be part of your protein or part of your vegetable intake in the form of nuts or seeds. Oils derived from plants provide essential fatty acids, mono- and polyunsaturated fats and vitamin E.
Step up to Supplements
While creating a balanced meal plate can get you the essential nutrients, due to certain health conditions or food allergies, you may at times have nutritional gaps that may need to be filled by supplements. The supplement can help ensure you are getting all the nutrients you need. However, it is important to talk to a nutrition expert before taking any supplements.
Healthy food choices vary from person to person, depending on age, gender, overall health, and physical activity. Though it may seem difficult to make every meal perfectly divided into food group portions, taking small steps can make a difference and lead to healthy lifestyle choices. Talk to our nutrition expert at 8 Fitness Tips to learn more about balanced nutritional meals.
A good night’s rest is often overlooked as an important component of health. But if you are someone who is struggling to fall asleep, there are plenty of foods that can help you catch up on your sleep.
Bedtime Drinks for Good Health
Precisely, there are few beverages that you can have at bedtime to help you sleep effectively. So, the next time you’re struggling to catch those dreams, try one of these below-mentioned tonics.
Whether it’s the ingredients that help you unwind or more of a soothing ritual effect, you’ll wake up feeling as fresh as a flower.
Warm Milk
Milk contains significant amounts of the amino acid tryptophan usually present in meals full of carbohydrates. Tryptophan is converted to the natural hormone melatonin, which helps to regulate our natural sleep state.
Adding turmeric to milk is also widely used to aid in sleep quality since it can protect against sleep deprivation.
Almond Milk
Almonds are a rich source of magnesium, a mineral that’s essential for good sleep. Almond milk is high in sleep-promoting hormones including tryptophan and melatonin. It can be a perfect bedtime beverage to overcome stressful thoughts and sleep well.
Banana Smoothie
Bananas are a good source of magnesium, potassium, tryptophan, and melatonin. Potassium and magnesium are said to relax muscles and help unwind at the end of a long day. This fruit-based sleep-assisting option is fantastic for promoting healthy sleep patterns.
Nutritional Supplements for Good Sleep
Protein Shake
The nutritional strategy of drinking protein shakes before going to bed is already adopted by athletes to increase muscle protein synthesis. If you are exercising to lose weight, or just working out to stay fit, then you can try a nutritional herbal protein shake before bedtime to maximize the results you want to achieve.
Herbal Tea
A soothing herbal blend of lemon balm, passionflower, lavender, melatonin, hops, valerian and chamomile can support relaxation while improving restful sleep.
It can be consumed to improve poor sleep patterns, alleviate anxiety, ease menopausal symptoms, and promote relaxation.
Bottom Line
Though none of the drinks listed above guarantees a good night sleep, they do possess some great natural qualities that aid in unwinding after a long day. Combined with other sleeping advice, these drinks might be just the remedy you need to fight off insomnia.
Food systems can deliver numerous biological functions through dietary components in the human body. Our body needs different types of nutrients to perform different functions. The more variety of food you have on your plate, the more types of nutrients the body gets from it. And that’s where Indian food wins. The inclusion of various spices, pulses, rice and grains, makes it one of the most wholesome foods in the world.
What does the Indian diet offer?
Indian Food Offer Variety
Typical Indian meals consist of dal (a legume dish) and rice, vegetables, salad, and fruit. This supplies the body with major nutrients including minerals, vitamins, iron, carbohydrates, proteins, calcium and fats. They are derived through a combination of the five major food groups – fruits and vegetables, cereals and pulses, meat and dairy products and fats and oils.
How does an Indian diet help healthy living?
Here are the reasons why you should stick with an Indian Diet.
Preparation of Indian food
The way Indian food is prepared contributes a lot to its health benefits. Sprouting, fermentation, malting etc enhance the functional properties of foods. Indian cooking style retains the nutritional aspects of the food and optimizes and also enhances the benefits provided by that.
Medicinal properties offered by herbs and spices
The use of herbs and spices has been incredibly important throughout history. Spices like turmeric, garlic, chillies, black pepper, cumin, fenugreek and many more offer exceptional medicinal and healing properties. The Indian cuisines make optimum use of these spices and herbs adding a healing property to the dishes.
Loaded with proteins and dietary fibre
Indian food consists of a variety of grains that are high in dietary fibre and enhances the body’s health and functioning. Besides, pulses that are high in protein are also an important part of Indian meals.
Fewer and safer preservatives
Traditional Indian cooking involves cooking fresh vegetables from scratch making the food healthier and preservatives free. Even if there is any use of preservatives in any of the preparation, it is done by using natural preservatives like salt, lemon, spices etc.
Use of good fats
Indian cooking is believed to make use of oil and ghee more as compared to other cooking methods. However, it involves the use of a variety of oils and ghee which contributes to fulfilling the body’s healthy fats requirement. Besides, the oils which are used in cooking are made from mustard seeds, peanuts, coconut, and groundnut which again is healthier choices an individual can make for cooking food.
Introduction
Syndrome (PCOS)/ (PCOD) causes the formation of follicle cysts in the ovaries. It can result in the excessive secretion of androgen (male steroid hormones), which is said to be the cause of several unusual changes in a female’s body.
What is PCOS?
PCOS is a syndrome in which several cysts, i.e. sacs filled with liquids, start growing on both the ovaries of women. They are large and often made out of immature eggs and other secretions. Due to the syndrome, women may experience problems with their periods. They may not have them at all or can get delayed and unpredictable.
What is PCOD?
Like PCOS, PCOD can have similar implications on the ovary but they are minor. In PCOD, lesser and smaller sacs are formed on ovaries, which can go back in three months. The periods are usually normal and sometimes, may get delayed. PCOD gets detected when women are not able to conceive during childbearing age.
Symptoms
The common symptoms in both PCOD and PCOS include no ovulation, irregular periods, acne and hirsutism.
PCOS has several symptoms ranging from obesity, irregular or no periods, excessive facial hair, baldness, body odour, fatigue, sleep-related problems, depression, anxiety, mood swings, headache etc.
The symptoms of PCOD can be similar to that of PCOS with some major differences. PCOS is usually detected at child-bearing age when women who are trying to conceive are not able to.
Periods can be irregular, which may cause buildup on the uterine wall. Besides, it has been observed women with PCOD gets more affected by obesity than those with PCOS problem.
Diet & Lifestyle
The medical treatment of PCOD/PCOS focuses on managing individual concerns including infertility, hirsutism, acne or obesity. Besides, weight loss has been shown to help with hormonal imbalance and infertility.
Along with medical treatment, it is important to follow a healthy diet and lifestyle to fight PCOD and PCOS. It is recommended to consume a healthy diet for a hormonal balance and a healthy weight.
PCOD
- To minimise the problem of irregular periods, women can increase the intake of antioxidants, prebiotics, probiotics and herbs.
- Consuming complex carbohydrates, food having a low glycemic index and micronutrients like selenium, magnesium and chromium can also help in PCOD.
- Deep-fried foods, simple carbohydrates, sugar, honey, and jaggery can be avoided by women with PCOD since they are insulin resistant.
- It is important to keep the water intake in check as PCOD can make one prone to constipation and water retention.
- Saturated fats can increase cholesterol and calorie level so it is advisable to avoid foods containing saturated fats.
- Some herbs have also been considered to keep your hormone health in check therefore consuming herbal supplements can also help fight PCOD.
- Besides nutrition, exercising for 30 to 60 minutes a day can also help in reducing insulin resistance.
PCOS
- Consuming fibre-rich food can help fight PCOS problems. So, women with PCOS can add plenty of fruits and vegetables to their diet since these are loaded with fibre.
- In PCOS, the level of androgen (male hormones) gets higher than normal. A diet rich in protein can lower the level of androgen and also help lose weight.
- Diet having low GI can also help in weight loss and improving insulin sensitivity.
- An optimum level of healthy fats can improve insulin levels as well as promote weight loss. Consuming foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids can also improve insulin resistance.
Bottomline
While natural and herbal supplements and alternative therapies can help PCOS and PCOD treatment, they are not a substitute for a customized, ongoing dialogue with your doctor about your symptoms.
Talk to the nutrition expert at 8 Fitness Tips to know more about PCOS and PCOD.
Many people are aware of the need for ongoing self-improvement. But often the emphasis is placed on external factors: physical fitness, acquiring skills to make yourself a stronger leader, or executive acumen.
However, none of that will get you where you truly want to go without support from a strong inner core.
What is Inner Strength?
People tend to get confused between mental strength and inner strength. is the strength of the soul. Inner strength is the core strength of a person, while mental strength is the strength of the mind.
Inner strength means having strong willpower with self-discipline. It is expressed through positivity and courage and how one withstands difficulties and obstacles.
Importance of Inner Strength
Inner strength is an essential skill, necessary for carrying out tasks, chores and decisions, and for the achievement of goals. It protects and assists day-to-day functions and is responsible for much of our movement.
A strong inner self gives us patience and courage essential for doing our duties. It gives us self-confidence, determination, tolerance and enthusiasm for leading a healthy and quality life.
It helps in controlling unnecessary and harmful impulses and habits. If you tend to be lazy, developing inner strength will help you overcome laziness.
It makes it easier to form goals and follow them through giving you the courage and strength to endure difficulties and hardships.
How to develop a strong inner self?
Developing this ability requires that you train your willpower and self-discipline. This is a gradual process and is highly beneficial.
Disconnect & Meditate
The only way to calm your inner chaos is with 100% focus. Distractions and disruptions can chip away at your core. Set aside one day a month to completely unplug everything. Take time to rejuvenate, connect with nature and just sit with your thoughts.
Give Importance to Your Body
You can use your body to strengthen your soul so be proactive about your health. It’s tough to feel strong inside if you are unhealthy outside. Make a strong effort to be fit and healthy. Eat right, exercise and feel good about yourself.
Here are a few simple exercises you can do:
- Drink your water.
- Climb up the stairs instead of taking the lift.
- Park your car a little far from your destination and walk.
Be Open to New Experiences
New experiences build resilience and creativity – two crucial aspects of inner strength. Get involved in new activities and give yourself the freedom to experiment and learn from diversity. Do something that you’ve never done before but wish to experiment; something that’s exciting, inspiring, and insightful.